


Leylines

by SleepingInSuburbia



Category: Everyman HYBRID
Genre: Character Study, Experimental Prose, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Interdimensional shenanigans, No idea where this fits in canon, Vinny(ie) is sad, just general weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 18:48:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29440698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepingInSuburbia/pseuds/SleepingInSuburbia
Summary: The borders between worlds were already blurring, and the writing on the wall was in fine print.Or: Jeff and Evan hang out in Reiteration Purgatory and some things start going bad.
Kudos: 3





	Leylines

**Author's Note:**

> This was, and is, meant to be a self-indulgent test of character voices for different EMH characters that turned into a mini story somewhere along the way. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. 
> 
> Rated Mature for some violence, adult themes, and excessive language.

“Hey Jeff,” Evan leaned back and swung one arm over the back of the couch. “Wanna play next round?”’

“Sure, yeah, just give me a minute.” Jeff didn’t look up, his nose in that binder. If it wasn’t the binders, it was the books. Or the laptop, if it bothered to fucking work. Goddamn signal was blown to hell half the time. You’d think something with microchips and all that fancy shit would be more reliable, but that’s just how the house is.

“Been a minute,” Evan replied, waiting a few seconds to see if Jeff will even acknowledge him. Nope. Sucks for him, but don’t come bitching in the middle of a match. Evan picked up the controller and started the next round of Call of Duty. He wasn’t gonna sit on his ass in this house. Well, maybe he was, but he’d do it playing video games. Infinitely better.

Jeff didn’t make any sense sometimes. Evan knew he was studying for the next time Corenthal showed up in his black trench coat like something out of _Blade_ , but why bother? Dad’d tell them what to do. He always did. They knew what to do, too: avoid monsters, send messages, don’t get fucked over. The plan didn’t need studying. Not when they had a perfectly good Xbox in front of them. Thing didn’t have a scratch on it. The only good thing about this fucking place.

The clicking of the controller, punctuated by Evan’s not-so-muffled swearing, drew Jeff’s attention from the ink on the page; Evan was sitting, half-hunched over, glued to the fuzzy screen. In a better world, he could hear Corenthal yelling, “Son, you’re gonna burn your eyes out like that.” 

Jeff did want to join in, but he had no idea when Corenthal would come through the door and expect a new coordinate set or message ready to ship. So far, he’d never missed a location, but the rifts didn’t find themselves; they were hidden in-between kerning and canvas, or floating in the laminate. Every page whispered something new, coughed up some dust that might scatter into a perfect tesseract at the zenith of midnight, which might’ve been the far end of soon or the near end of never. They didn’t have any clocks to check. There was no point in keeping time in a house that abhorred it.

He’d tried at first; they both had, really. Evan kept his own corner, carving a line into the drywall each time the sun dipped below the horizon, and Jeff had marked down his tally in his journal. It worked well until Jeff’s pen ran dry and Evan’s knife dulled, and Evan had started throwing things, cursing, and screaming about how it was a prison sentence. Jeff had torn out the pages in the journal, and both agreed to cover up the corner of the room with a blue tarp from the Closet of Things. Jeff looked at the tarp behind the TV, duct-taped, stapled, strung up, and looking more like a contemporary collage than a DIY project. It was sagging in the middle and falling apart at the seams; there was a joke there. Something about a mid-life crisis. That’s what they should tweet out next; the viewers would love that, wouldn’t they? Hey, Jeff here, we’re still around (kind of) and alive (technically, we’re still figuring that one out) but I’ve got a request for all you hybrids out there: I need a joke. Jeff smiled.

Maybe he could take a break.

“Evan?” Jeff shut the binder. 

“Next round, yeah?” He had come bitching. Typical. Great timing. Should’ve seen it coming really. Shoulda seen—damn, had someone messed with the settings? His aim was off to hell. Fuck. Well, Jeff might as well join him. He waved him over.

“Or now?” Jeff said.

“Yeah, yeah.” Smartass. Evan passed the second controller. “You ready?”

Vinnie had braced himself for the shrill scream, but it had been five minutes and he was running out of patience. He pushed himself back from the desk, walked out of the gray room and down the gray hallway to what should’ve been a gray kitchen. It was a blue kitchen. A blue kitchen with white Shaker cabinets and a modern fridge and an electric kettle. An electric kettle that was currently spewing out steam. Vinnie sighed.

God, please, let there be caffeine. 

There was no coffee, only tea in a little yellow rectangle. Vinnie turned the carton around. Chamomile tea. He dropped the box. 

A few minutes later he found himself at the table, smoothing out the checkered tablecloth. He wasn’t quite sure of the path he’d taken to get there, but there were paper towels on the counter and a few of his fingers were red and tingling. The tea box was back in the cabinet. Shut away. He could still remember the lettering on the box; the sweeping C that led into the H, and the continual reassurance that this beverage was _not_ caffeinated, it _was_ herbal and perfect for a good night’s rest. Vinnie found himself staring at the blue and white checkered cloth. 

Bullshit. Get me out of this damn house and I’d be calm.

He stayed at that table for a couple minutes judging by the clock. Vinnie noticed that sometimes the second hand got stuck, but the seconds didn’t matter too much anyway. He had more than his fair share of those; seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, and while we’re at it, years too. He had more than enough time for the rest of his life. If it ended today, he wouldn’t even mind. He’d welcome it, in fact, with open arms. Hell, he’d kiss the ground it’d walk on.

A creak. From the entryway. Vinnie’s grip tightened around the mug handle. The expected click of boots on tile did not come, and he let go of the mug. 

Thank God, thank God.

The mug had now turned towards him, exposing its proud red letters: BRIARVIEW ELEMENTARY. He dumped the tea in the sink.

Fucking shit. The fucker had broken his bridge. One of his bridges. He had many. But this was a quality-ass bridge. Good fucking quality. Wasted. Cast into the proverbial void. Gone. Fuck.

Yeah, see you over there motherfucker. This ain’t none of your goddamn business. You stand there, lookin’ all tall and scary. I’m resolving this shit myself ‘cause that’s all you do, standing there, not moving a fucking muscle. Almost like you don’t have any hands. Oh, too close to home? Get off your fucking high horse. I do all the real shit around here. What’s your pet do, except stick its nose in my business and fuck with my targets? I had my eye on Alex. Had ‘em in my sights. Didn’t quite know what I was gonna do with him, but something better than your fucking garbage bag party trick. Now leave me alone, gotta clean up this shit. Shit that your pet broke, by the way. If I see it on my property again, I’ll quarter it with my own fucking hands.

Good, tall fucker was gone. Now to deal with this. Huh, the marks were clean. Not a bad cut. Maybe the dog didn’t fuck it up. No, no, definitely not the dog. Not with a signature like that. That was human. That was—fucking _him_ again? No, that was early. Too early. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to run. Something must’ve come through. The circle was closing in. Months, not years. Unless. _Unless_. 

The circle just needed to idle. Sit Vinny down in a house somewhere. A new house. They’d move houses. Shift without changing, not yet. Pump the brakes and wait for the stars to align. Feed Vinny some bullshit about not being ready. But he wasn’t. He was close, damn close, but not ready. Extend it. Make him believe he couldn’t do it. Can’t do it. Slip that taboo in there—don’t do this, such a big bad thing. No, this is not at _all_ what I want, it’s about _you_ a’course, your safety. Your not-being-ready and all. Damn, that was good.

The sig was humming. Voices. Voices that almost sounded like—that was _too_ good. Shit, this day was going well. Maybe if he pressed here, reached up there, tie it up no loose strands and don’t get fucking sloppy, not with such a nice cut, then he could almost—ah, yes he could; you need to brush up on your surgery, doc. In between the first post and the second was a gap large enough to fit your hand, thumb and all, and that was all he needed.

HABIT began opening the bridge.

“No way, no way. Are you kidding me? He’s got to be aimbotting, look at that shot.”

“They are bots, Evan,” Jeff said.

“I knew that,” Evan leaned back. “I was just warming up. Gotta loosen up the thumbs, you know. All the pros do it.”

“Sure.” 

Jeff didn’t understand Evan sometimes. After all these years, countless iterations, he thought he would understand how Evan did it, but he had never had the sense or time to ask. Now he did. Jeff set down the controller and, with a deep breath, began: “How do you do it?”

“What?” Evan’s eyes were still on the TV. 

“Every time we go into an iteration, you never pause. Every reset you stare down the barrel of that gun unblinking. And when you’re out, you take it in stride. Like it’s just another normal day. I mean, playing video games for Christ’s sake,” Jeff gestured towards the TV. “I can’t stop thinking about the next cycle, the next location, or that I might be missing something.”

Evan set down the controller, scratching the back of his head, “I mean, we know what we signed up for. So that’s that. But, truth is, it isn’t our whole life. We got our time out there to fight, and in here to plan. You’re good at all the planning stuff, I’m more just, point me in the direction, you know?”

“Yeah. Believe me, I know,” Jeff’s smile was breaking into laughter. “Do you remember the baseball bat?”

“You mean that time in the factory?” Evan’s eyes lit up. “Hell yeah, almost nailed the skinny bastard, too. This close. Fucker doesn’t fight fair.”

“So you did hit him?”

“I’m pretty sure I did, actually. Camera won’t show it, but I felt that bat connect.”

“Couldn’t take one hit,” Jeff mused.

“Couldn’t take one hit,” Evan said, and then held up an arm to flex. “Not like this star bod.”

“Oh yeah,” Jeff said, mouth open and about to continue a thought when he saw Evan drop his arm. Evan’s face went pale for a moment before brightening up, red hot, eyes fierce and narrowed on some invisible force in the wall. Jeff had seen this face before, at the factory.

“Evan,” Jeff lowered his voice, but Evan shook his head, and now his hands were on his head, and he stood up still half bent, and Jeff could catch words if he shut his eyes:

No, not again. Not here. That was fucking impossible. He shouldn’t be able to hear him. This place had been sealed off. Nothing came in or out unless Corenthal was there. Fuck, he could hear him. What the fuck was he doing? Who fucking cared. He wasn’t going to let him get back in his head again. No. Count down, son. You’ll know if you can still hit one, you’re you. You can always keep control, now keep your mind on the numbers. I want you to say them out loud. Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven.

“Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.” Evan opened his eyes, now misty and red. His voice was starting to catch in his throat, “Fuck, Jeff. He’s here.”

Vinnie had found himself back at the laptop, finger hovering above the play button. He knew what would happen when he pressed it, and he knew he needed to; he needed to remember, yet every time he parked himself in front of the screen he froze at the exact same moment. There wasn’t even anything on the screen to be afraid of; it was empty. That also meant there was no clue as to what would be there. It could be like the other videos. Vinnie did not want to think about the other videos, so he did not press the button. He reached for his mug, a different mug; this mug was white, except for a little watercolor of pine trees and buildings he didn’t know. He focused on the taste of the tea in his mouth: bitter, cloying, cheap. Like a gas station red a few minutes outside of Philadelphia. The same color as the blood in the attic.

Cold. It had been so cold. So fucking cold, he’d seen his own breath fog up the camera lens. The floor creaked under his weight. He couldn’t take a step in that place without making a noise. The door slammed downstairs.

Vinnie spun in his chair. There was no one in the entryway, he could see from here. He clawed his fingers into the desk and took a few deep breaths. He needed to do it for them. He could change this, end this. He swallowed the bile in his throat, but a new acid was rising up his spine and sinking its fangs into the back of his brain, spilling venom that sounded like _stop being such a pussy_ ; he pressed play.

Vinnie woke up several minutes later on the ground. His knees hurt. He sat up, wincing; somehow, he’d hit them on the table. They would heal. He wiped his nose, expecting to come away with red. He didn’t; he checked his ears. Scarlet. Bingo. 

He pulled himself up with the edge of the table and woke the computer up; it was still black and empty as before, but the scrub-bar at the bottom said 7:52. Vinnie opened a new document on the computer and tried to type what he remembered, but he couldn’t remember anything. He tried to reach back to the point right after he had hit play, but it was as blank as the screen. Usually, he remembered something; a flash of a town, or the hospital, or Princeton’s campus. This time it was nothing. He thought it might be like building up a tolerance, so he’d have to run it again. 

How many times could he do it? They’d never tried to do back-to-back videos; it was always broken up by time. Would he pass out longer next time? Would he start bleeding out of his eyes? Would he start coughing up blood? Would he die? Well, that didn’t matter. Vinnie started laughing. That didn’t matter.

What the hell had happened to him?

The door clicked. Someone was unlocking it. Vinnie’s soul sank. The fucking timing. At least he’d have a few seconds to prepare himself this time. He shut the laptop as the door opened. The boots were clicking on the tile. Vinnie didn’t want to think of what was being tracked in this time; he would know when he got the mop from the closet later. Vinnie would just hold his head up, as much as he could, but he wouldn’t make eye contact, and he would greet him and not respond unless he said something to him directly.

“Hey H—” Vinnie stopped. The figure shut the door and then held out his hand.

“Come on, son, we don’t have much time. I just shut that door on ‘em, so they’re hot on our trail. Let’s go.”

“James?” Vinnie couldn’t move. He needed time to process.

“Yeah. I can explain once we’re out. We need to go. Now.” Dr. Corenthal’s voice grew stern, and he popped the cigar out of his mouth to slip a revolver into his open hand.

“Yeah, sure. Yeah,” Vinnie was still thawing. 

He was leaving. With Corenthal. He’d dreamt this, but it had never been more than that. His eyes started to well with tears. As soon as he was in reach, Dr. Corenthal grabbed his hand and pulled him through the closet door.

Leaving the wound open like that was a stupid-ass mistake. Amateur. Not at all the quality of the good doctor. But the rest of it, well, that was a fucking challenge.

Just crack the stitches open; it’s not like ya’ve never done this. Get it to-fucking-gether. Feel that gap (yeah) and run your fingers in till you’re reaching past the skin, into the warm and the wet tissue (yeah), until you’re feeling the slimy cord pulsin’ like an artery in your grip (yeah) and pull it with all your fuckin’ might. Gotta pull it. _Pull_ it. Slippery little shits, weren’t they? Fucking pull.

Was that a snap? Ok, a little more give under there. Definitely snapped. Good. One stitch was out, bleeding, singing fucking Christmas music? Of all things? You pick one season to spice things up, light a fire under everybody’s ass, and it fucking haunts ya.

Another stitch. Leaking out the tapes and—Princeton. Fucking Princeton. There were good days and there were _good_ days, and Princeton was a _good day_. Good month, year, fuck it, whatever. Good time. Damn good time. And the hospital? Oh fuck, the hospital. Walking up and down the halls. Trailin’ him. Watchin’ him go in circles. Would this turn do it? This turn? How about this? Let me make the same fucking decisions again and again like an absolute moron and then go sob in a corner about it. If only he had known the layout, oh, that really would’ve fucked with his poor little skull. 

A few more stitches and a few more bouts of gritting teeth, and rending sinew, and untangling the writhing knots, and smoothing out the creases, and ignoring the wailing sirens of the whiny pine tree fuckface, and hotwiring the fraying potentials, and there it was. Fucking magnificent.

Not the best door; he’d make better, and he’d made worse; this one’d stand for a week, tops, before it folded over. Collapsed. Fucked off to be _its_ problem. Now where’d this tube run to? Same place as before? It fuckin’ better. It did. The voices were still talking to each other about games, and life, and other boring shit.

Oh, sweet little Jeffers. Too smart for the cage. He always saw the bars first. Hated axing him. Well, loved and hated it. And, Evan? Huh. Didn’t think he was getting through. Check that later. Right now, focus. Oh, this was gonna be fun. So much fun—imagine the look on their faces. Hell, on Vinny’s face? Fuck, that’d be rich. Sorry, Vinny, but when opportunity comes aknockin’ you don’t shut that door. You swing that fucker wide open and slice that opportunity up and stick it in the freezer in the basement. Oh, by the way, your freezer’s full. 

Knock knock, anybody home? Aw, no answer. Guess I’ll just let myself in.

HABIT opened the door.

“You don’t mean—”

“Yeah, I mean _him_ ,” Evan was pacing the room; gotta find a weapon. Gotta find something. Something before—fuck, no, don’t even think it. He’d get in with that.

“Calm down, we can figure this out.” Jeff said, but he didn’t know. He’d be pacing too, if they had enough room. They’d done this before, in a different time, a different mirror; dirty as it was, he could still see through, but the longer he stared the more he realized the mirror hadn’t been cleaned for good reason. Last iteration’s valiant stand had ended with a boulder to his brain and a sizable pile of bodies. Evan had dropped into Eden an hour later. They had all agreed on a prompt reset. 

Calm down? He was seriously going with calm down? Fucking whiny ass motherfucker, he’d— “Jeff, I know you’re trying to help, but could you shut up for a fucking second.”

“We don’t have time for this, I, look at me Evan. Look at me,” Jeff’s voice was spinning up and wavering like vinyl. It’d reach a fever pitch and start singing soon; something like _On a dark desert highway_ , _baby don’t fear the reaper, the best is yet to come._ Was that music in his head, or the house? Jeff reached towards Evan’s shoulder.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” he spat, shoving Jeff’s hand away. Collect yourself. Fucking get ahold of yourself. He took a few short breaths, hands clenching until fingertips bit in, and then unclenching. Where could he put his fucking hands? He knew where he’d like to put ‘em. He could already see Jeff on the ground, bleedin’ out the nose and wiping it off with the back of his hand and trying not to choke up like—Pockets. Put ‘em in the fucking pockets that you fucking have. 

Breathe. 

Shit, it was bad. “Jeff, you know how this rolls, every fucking time. Leave. Now.”

“There has to be—”

“While you still have legs to run with.”

That couldn’t be it. There was always something; some nuance, some trace, some circled passage that’d lead them home. What had they done before? Jeff’s mind was flipping through pages, skimming the lines of Baldpate and parsing Jim Thorpe from Centralia. There was. By candlelight, they’d all sat around and talked and Evan had been wearing handcuffs. Handcuffs. 

There was the slightest, faintest, snowball-in-hell's chance that the handcuffs could be in the Closet of Things. The Closet had spat out the half-baked mana of the tarp, and it could toss them a life raft. But they’d need to hurry; Evan’s eyes were flooding.

He bolted towards the closet door. It was only a few steps, it’d take more time to slow down and grab the handle, but he wasn’t wasting any more seconds. Minutes. Hours.

“The fuck are you doing?” The voice was distant, discrepant, so he kept his hand on the door and turned the knob. It swung open with hurricane gales.

He jumped back to find hands on his shoulders, so he’d swung back but that had been caught too, so that he was on the floor, and he could only watch, and he was walking through the door into a bright room with dull cream walls that was not at all what he remembered Eden to look like, and he had him down on the ground, the little fuck, throat under his hands, he’d get blood on these hands, fuck it was good to be back, and he was begging with wide eyes, lips moving but soundless, legs kicking towards something blurring in the corner and he could only watch and he couldn’t move, he’d just stepped to the side because _what the fuck was this sick joke_ but something had gently pushed him too and how’s it feel bitch, the blood was back in his fingertips, oh he was alive he could taste it and his vision was dark at the edges and he couldn’t watch anymore and he was trying so damn hard to move just move or do something anything and the fucker’s eyes were rolling back now he almost thought about letting up but it was just too good too fucking good he could drag it out later he had tricks up his sleeve he’d go back to the attic and make it last he’d gotten greedy but now he had time to spare he had time to fucking spare

Bang. 

A single shot.

Dr. Corenthal blew the smoke off the end of his revolver and slipped it back into his holster underneath that black trenchcoat. Evan rolled off Jeff, both gasping. Vinnie blinked.

“I don’t even know what to ask.” Vinnie said.

“Come over here and help him up.” Dr. Corenthal hoisted Jeff up, who was still rubbing at his throat and forcing out raspy breaths. Evan was cursing and pushing himself off the floor. “Let’s go, boys.”

Dr. Corenthal held the door to the Closet of Things open and waved them through. As soon as all three were through the entryway, he slammed the door and pointed the barrel past their heads. There was a door in front of them now that Vinnie didn’t remember. 

“Cover your ears,” said Dr. Corenthal. Vinnie covered his ears. Dr. Corenthal blew the lock off the door and it fell open with a groan into bright light. Vinnie stepped through.

Trees. Grass. Blue skies. A house in the distance. A breeze that smelled like lilies and lavender and, impossibly, exactly, like Hoagie Haven. Vinnie filled his lungs with it.

“You kids okay?” James shut the door and it clicked with the sound of a new lock. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that. I should’ve told you the borders were shifting. I was on my way, but I had no idea they were going to change that fast. They usually don’t, but looks like the monsters were tailing us more than the usual. Evan, how are ya, son?”

“Good. Fucking hurts,” Evan started to laugh, but winced halfway through and gripped his shoulder. His shirt was stained through, and anything not caught up in the cloth was tracing jittery lines down his arm.

“Sorry, we’ll patch you up inside. It was a hard shot to pull off with Jeff there but I needed to scare him off.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Evan nodded. 

“How are you Jeff?”

“Fine,” he coughed. “It’ll wear off in a day.”

“That’s the spirit. What a champ,” James clapped him on the back. “Why don’t you two head up to the house? We’ll start mapping out the next steps.”

Evan shot Jeff a look, and then Jeff grabbed Evan’s outstretched hand and pulled him into a hug, and Evan gave a fistbump with the hand attached to the non-bleeding shoulder. They both started laughing and headed up the road, towards that house in the woods. 

“Vinnie,” Dr. Corenthal’s voice grew somber and he put a hand on him. “I have to send you back. You still have a chance to turn this around. You’re going in the right direction, just keep fighting and do not, under any circumstances, give in. I know it’s hard, and you’ve arguably got the hardest position of us all. I know. But know that I love you and believe in you, and no matter what happens you’ve got a home here.”

“Thank you.” Vinnie could see Jeff and Evan up on the porch, leaning over the railing and staring off into the pines. They were talking. Just talking. Evan knocked Jeff back with his elbow, but Jeff wasn’t grimacing or wide-eyed; he was smiling. Laughing, still. Jeff stepped back so that he hit the windchime and set notes spilling across the breeze that still carried faint notes of warm bread. “Why can’t I stay a little longer?”

Dr. Corenthal shook his head and pulled out a cigar. They were both looking at the porch now. Vinnie continued, “You know what I’ve been through. What difference does a few minutes make?”

“Son, if I had my way you could stay here forever, but that’s just not the way it works. Not right now,” He was chewing on the cigar and flipping the lighter; on, off, on, off.

“James,” Vinne’s voice was almost lost in the breeze, “please.”

They stood there for an eternity.

James took the cigar out of his mouth, still unlit, and sighed. He turned to Vinnie.

“Do you know how to stitch?”

Vinnie almost cried for the second time that day. 

Both men headed up the road to the house.

  
  
  



End file.
